Simple Economics

By Jon McDonald – For systems with very large numbers of units the NRE cost can become insignificant relative to the overall cost of the end device. If we think about an iPhone with more than 100 million units shipped last year, an SoC development cost of $25 million to $50 million becomes a relatively minor component of the overall cost of the unit. In this context it becomes incredibly important to invest in careful design processes that ensure the complexity in the hardware is thoroughly understood.

One way of improving the understanding of complex systems is to create abstract models of the system, which allow us to capture the important externally visible attributes of the elements without dealing with the internal complexity. more> http://tinyurl.com/bpq4few